Republic of Ireland: Chocolate Guinness Cake

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! In honour of today I present the cake for the Republic of Ireland – the Chocolate Guinness Cake.

This cake is everything a chocolate cake should be; moist, chocolatey, dense and seriously delicious! The Guinness gives this cake a deep richness and the cream cheese frosting finishes the cake off perfectly (not to mention making it look authentic!) Sadly this is not an original recipe, being taken from the amazing book ‘Cake Days’ by the Hummingbird Bakery. Having said that though, this cake is too good not to make, and is one that is made regularly!

Chocolate Guinness Cake

Ingredients:

The cake:

250ml Guinness

250g unsalted butter

80g cocoa powder

400g caster sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

140 ml buttermilk

280g plain flour

2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

The frosting:

50g unsalted butter

300g icing sugar

125g full fat cream cheese

Cocoa powder (for dusting)

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 170°C (325°F)/Gas Mark 3, and line the base of a 9in springform tin with baking parchment.

Heat the butter and Guinness in a saucepan until the butter has melted, before removing from the heat and stirring in the sugar and cocoa powder. In a separate jug, mix the eggs, buttermilk and vanilla essence, before adding to the mixture in the pan.

Sift together the remaining cake ingredients into a bowl. Add the contents of the pan and mix until completely incorporated. Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin and bake for about 45 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean. Set aside to cool before removing from the tin in preparation for frosting.

To make the frosting, sift the icing sugar into a bowl and mix with the butter until there are no lumps. Add the cream cheese, and beat in slowly. Increase the speed, and continue beating until the frosting is light and fluffy. Cover the cake with the frosting before dusting with cocoa powder.